


The Animal Instinct

by ObtuseOctopus



Series: Living in Hue [12]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Feral Behavior, Gem Egg Hell, Gemlings, Gen, Parental Instinct, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26051878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObtuseOctopus/pseuds/ObtuseOctopus
Summary: • COMPLETE. •Outdated instincts and behaviors are near impossible to understand. So what do you do if your daughter is acting so and you don’t know how to accommodate with it? Lapis is put into a tough position when she learns that Pea is trying to learn to fly, put on the edge of both her own thoughts and feelings against something from the old days.
Relationships: Bismuth/Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe), Bismuth/Lapis Lazuli/Peridot (Steven Universe), Lapis Lazuli/Peridot (Steven Universe)
Series: Living in Hue [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615498
Kudos: 15





	The Animal Instinct

She should’ve seen this coming, she should've at the very least  _ assumed  _ that the gemling who inherited her gemstone facet and cut would be the one to start hopping around trying to get somewhere. Trying to  _ fly _ , actually. Lapis had disregarded the possibility, purely because the gemling was also in sort a  _ hybrid _ , something that hadn’t been around for eons if you don’t count Steven for being part human. 

Peridot had been the one to point out that Pea was… acting  _ strange _ ; jumping around, finding places to jump off of, recently she almost put herself in danger as all part of instinct in trying to learn to fly.

“She just… tried to jump off!” Peridot gasped, shaken up from what had happened. “She climbed on top of the building and she-!”

“Okay, calm down,” Lapis eased the worrying technician. “This is normal.”

“N- NORMAL? THAT IS  _ NORMAL _ ?” Peridot nearly fainted. “How do you know that this is NORMAL?! Oh stars oh stars ohstarsohstars-“

“For us, I feel like it is…” Lapis murmured. “I should’ve known...” She reached down to pick Pea up, letting out a sigh. “I didn’t think she’d be able to fly. I mean… they’re not…”

“Pure Gems, yeah,” Peridot finished. “Which! Is even more dangerous because their hybrid lineage could mean that they have more than just general abilities from one side-“

“Can you watch Emily for me?” Lapis interfered. 

“- Oh. Yeah, sure, why?”

“Trust me on this. I’ll take care of Pea.” 

Peridot watched Lapis walk off with the purple gemling, anxiety clawing her alive. “Hmph! At least you’re aren’t having any tendencies to jump off things at dangerous heights,” she nervously laughed to Emily, who was sitting by her heel chewing on a carrot from the greenhouse. “... Right?”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Truth be told, Lapis didn’t know what she was doing. But instinct told her that this was normal, this was a part of growing up, and her daughter was only listening to her own instinct. It was something that all Gems internally had, or most if not all. It just had to be lured out in certain criteria, unearthed and held hostage for years. It was easier for gemlings or mothers to succumb to the call of primal ferocity, rooted to an outdated mindset for survival.

But flying…? Lapis of course knew how to fly, the problem was teaching it to someone else, specifically a baby. Why was it that the gemlings figuring out how to form their own outfits and change their shape was easy but this wasn’t? She hoped that maybe her own instincts would kick in, but none did. And when she turned to magazines, the only relative information that she could find about Pea’s behavior was akin to baby birds and fledglings. Perhaps she just… needed to let Pea figure this out on her own.

Lapis stared at the gemling in front of her, sitting down on a stump in the woods. This place would be perfect for any kind of mishaps Pea wanted to get into. No tall buildings, trees were harder to climb, there were  _ smaller  _ things like rocks she could play around on…

How would one go about teaching a Gem to fly? She hadn’t even seen Pea try to summon any wings yet! This was… difficult, to say the least.

Pea stared back at her mother. She began to mess with a caterpillar that crawled by, poking at it and kicking at it. Lapis grabbed her daughter, saving the caterpillar from injury. 

“We don’t kick at living things,” Lapis told Pea, scolding her lightly. It was a lesson she herself had to learn if she was going to stay on Earth. Things here were organic, and they could feel pain in more physical ways than Gems. They were delicate. Pea would need to respect that too should she want to follow in the footsteps of many Gems today. 

Pea scowled, wiggling in her mother’s grasp.

“What?” Lapis couldn’t figure out why her daughter was squirming. “If it’s to bother that thing again, no.”

Pea started to get more insistent.

“Pea!” Lapis’ attempts to nab her daughter again failed, and the gemling ran off. Lapis mumbled a curse under her breath. “Pea! Get over-!” She pursued the gemling, growing frustrated bit by bit. This was a bad idea. Why on earth did she think this was a good idea…

Lapis slowed down as soon as she caught up, but she didn’t reach out towards Pea yet. The gemling had found a small rock to perch on, and to Lapis’ surprise, a small pair of watery wings sprung from her gemstone. They flittered for a brief moment before they disappeared, and that was when Pea hopped off the rock.

Lapis bit her lip. So she did take more after her after all… 

Pea climbed the rock again, her water wings appearing once more. They caught the strips of sunlight glaring through the treetops, sparkling in iridescent blue and green. 

Lapis stepped near. She didn’t take her eyes off her daughter. She watched Pea while she too got onto the rock, and summoned her own wings. Pea’s eyes focused on her.

_ Is she waiting for me to show her?  _ Lapis thought.  _ Or is she just watching me just because?  _

There was only one way to find out. The rock wasn’t even that tall, but Lapis made sure to stand up before she stepped off it. Her wings caught her, and she flapped them once before she was able to stay airborne a few feet off the ground. “See?” She demonstrated. “Just keep them out until your feet are on the ground again. Not before.” She showed off another flap, then she landed. 

Pea blinked. She flapped her wings a few times before she jumped, Lapis catching her as she fell. 

“Try again,” Lapis encouraged. She flashed a warm smile. And so Pea did, and she did so a few times, all while Lapis was there to catch her when she fell.

Perhaps it was cooperation that Pea needed in her small rite of passage. Lapis never got upset, and she never got mad when Pea didn’t succeed. She was there to nudge Pea back onto the rock and try again, and she was also there to ensure that she didn’t get hurt. It was going to be grand once the gemlings could start talking more and expanding their vocabulary.

The duo had been out until sunset, which Lapis had deemed as time to head home. She held Pea with both arms, taking off into the sky and soaring back to Little Homeworld.

Peridot had been worried sick, judging by how she reacted when they finally got home. “Lapis! It’s been approximately eight hours and-!”

“I know.” Lapis stepped into Peridot’s domain, spying Emily fast asleep among some pillows. She set Pea down beside her sister. “I spent today trying to teach Pea to fly and… it’s still a work in progress.”

“She does have wings after all?”

“Yeah.” Lapis sat down by her daughters, gently running her hand over Emily’s hair. “She’ll get it eventually. I’m more scared about this instinct thing. What if we didn’t know what Pea was doing and she…?”

“You’re her mother and like the smartest Gem I know. You’ll figure it out one way or another,” Peridot said. “Plus, you’re one of the only Gems who probably does get this sort of topic. More than I do, anyway.”

“Going feral and having instinct is two different things,” Lapis argued.

“I don’t think so- instinct is what makes you go feral,” Peridot countered. “Yours was caused by parental hormones going into overdrive. The gemlings are still growing and they’re still a long way from abandoning their original survival instincts. Once they start talking more or are introduced to manners and civilization, they’ll lose touch with it. Also, is this a bad time to mention that Bismuth went looking for you four hours ago?”

“She  _ what _ ?!” Lapis groaned. “I’ll go find her. Just… stay here and watch them,” she gestured to her daughters. “It shouldn’t be too hard. They’re tired now.”

_ Maybe I’ll never understand this feral or instinct thing _ , Lapis thought. Gems never really had a reason to ever succumb to it anyway on Homeworld under the rule of the Diamonds, and even today Gems were too civilized and created from Kindergartens which denied them any genome or whatever Peridot called it to cause reverting into a beast. Gems were aliens, and before Homeworld had been properly established, there had been just a planet full of wild things. Probably only the oldest Gems knew about those days, billions of eons ago where hardly a Gem remembered. This was all a confusing, play-by-ear sort of ordeal for Lapis. She didn’t even think it would be possible to have any brood at all. But nature has its ways, and life finds a way, so here she was now raising a new generation.

She would just have to adapt and overcome the few obstacles that came with this changing planet, and all of life’s changing ways. It was all she could do.


End file.
